


Show Me a Hero (and I'll Write You a Tragedy)

by rosewiththorns



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Detroit Red Wings, Disappointments, Discipline, Expectations, Gen, Heroes, Kneeling, Kneeling Universe, M/M, mentoring
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-05
Updated: 2015-11-05
Packaged: 2018-04-30 04:31:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,295
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5150327
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rosewiththorns/pseuds/rosewiththorns
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Even if he wants to be, Dylan can't be anyone's hero. Written per reader request.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Show Me a Hero (and I'll Write You a Tragedy)

**Author's Note:**

> This story is set sometime during Dylan's rookie year.

“Show me a hero, and I’ll write you a tragedy.”—F. Scott Fitzgerald

Show Me a Hero (and I’ll Write You a Tragedy) 

Everything echoed in the empty tunnel of Dylan’s head. Kneeling on the brocade pillow by the foot of the bed in Hank’s hotel room, where he had been told to wait and try to calm himself down while Hank took a shower in the bathroom, Dylan could hear every sound magnified as if in a megaphone—the air churned out by the vents in the ceiling was a gale; the clock ticking on the nightstand was a time bomb; the water slamming against the tiles of the shower was a torrential downpour—and that didn’t help him relax. 

Massaging his temples, which were throbbing from the excessive stimulation of the everyday sounds around him, he recalled how, as a child, he longed to have superhero hearing capable of making out whispers through walls. Now that he had it, he no longer wanted it, or anything else that came with being hailed as a superhuman—the next Yzerman or Datsyuk, or Detroit’s future Toews, or whatever bullshit media was trying to sell him as this week—for that matter. It was all too much pressure that made his aching sinuses feel on the verge of exploding. 

As the shower switched off in the bathroom, the din in Dylan’s head subsided somewhat, but not finding the relative quiet—in which he could hear his doubts about his ability to be the hero everybody wanted all the louder—anymore comforting than the hubbub, he clenched his fists around the pillow and yanked it out from under his kneecaps. When his knees banged against the hard wood floor—probably leaving golf ball size bruises for him to discover in black and blue tomorrow morning—he swore and hurled the pillow at the wall. 

Most unluckily Hank, dressed in gym shorts and a T-shirt, chose that moment to emerge from the bathroom in a nimbus of steam. 

“Dylan.” Hank didn’t sound angry, but Dylan winced anyway. Throwing the pillow across the room like a hot potato definitely counted as being a rebellious rookie, so Hank was probably going to spank him or make him kneel without the pillow or (please God, no) both. Whatever happened it was sure to be the crowning glory on an awful day. “Pick up the pillow.” 

Numbly, Dylan pushed himself to his feet and crossed over to the corner where the pillow had landed. 

“Come here,” ordered Hank from the bed where he was now sitting, eyeing Dylan with a sympathetic expression that only made him feel more nervous. 

Positive that Hank only felt bad about how much his ass was going to be beaten, Dylan shuffled back to the bed, wishing that it could take him a hundred years to travel a few feet. All too soon, he reached Hank, where he waited on tenterhooks to be hauled over Hank’s lap. 

Hank’s hands wrapped around Dylan’s shaking shoulders, but they squeezed instead of tugged. “Kneel for me.” 

“On the floor, Z?” Dylan tried not to sound as miserable as he felt, because, after all, he at least wasn’t being spanked. Things could be worse, so he didn’t want to make them that by acting like a brat. 

“On the pillow will be fine.” Hank’s lips twisted into the hint of a smile. 

Not daring to believe the goodness fickle fortune was showing toward him, Dylan tossed the pillow onto the floor and sank into its softness before Hank could change his mind. “I thought you were going to punish me,” he muttered, unable to stop himself, although he planted his palm over his mouth after the words escaped him as if to contain horses that had already charged out of the barn. 

“You don’t need to be punished, Dylan.” Hank’s fingers carded through his hair as if it were lamb’s fleece. When Dylan stared up at him as if he had spouted three heads like Cerberus, he explained, “I’ll only punish you when you’re deliberately disobedient, and right now you aren’t having any problems with that.” 

“I threw the pillow across the room, though,” pointed out Dylan, biting his lip, since he felt the need to be honest even if it brought him nothing but trouble. 

“Yes, you did.” Hank cupped Dylan’s chin, tilting his face up so that their eyes locked. “However, I don’t believe that you did that to be defiant. I think you just lost control of your temper. Am I right, kid?” 

“Yeah.” Ashamed that Hank could see the bad sides of him so clearly, Dylan lowered his gaze to study the whorls in the wood beneath his knees. “I’m sorry, Z. I’ve just been in such a slump and everything feels like it’s piling on top of one another to crush me like an avalanche.” 

Realizing that he was making pathetic excuses more than apologizing—speaking more like an immature child than the responsible adult everyone, including himself, expected him to be—he snapped his jaw shut. Maybe he couldn’t be the next Yzerman, or Datsyuk, or Toews that the media anointed him, but he could at least not whine like a bitch. 

“You’ll pass through this slump, Dylan.” Hank clapped him on the back before adding wryly, “Either that, or you’ll never score again, but the odds definitely favor the former, if that’s any comfort.” 

“It’s a small comfort.” Wishing that he could find Hank’s quip funny enough to laugh or even grin at, Dylan fiddled with a loose strand of pillow. “Z, the news says I should be the next Yzerman, but I can’t.” 

“Don’t worry about what the media expects of you.” Hank rubbed figure-eights along his back. “Everybody who matters just wants to see you work hard and do your best, because they care about you and want to see you reach your full potential, whatever that turns out to be.” 

“What if my best turns out to be a disappointment?” Dylan, like a woebegone puppy, burrowed his face into Hank’s leg. 

“Your best could never be a disappointment.” Hank emphasized this pronouncement with a tap on Dylan’s shoulder. 

“I want to be like Yzerman.” Dylan twisted his head so he could look earnestly up at Hank. “I want the media to be right. I’m just afraid it won’t be because I’m not good enough, Z.”

“We all want to be like Yzerman, kid.” Hank chuckled. “If it makes you feel any better, kid, you’re already like him in some ways. He was a thrower, too.” 

“Really?” Dylan’s eyes widened at this revelation, since he had never bothered to imagine how an Yzerman who had lost his temper might act, because it seemed impossible that someone as dignified as Yzerman would ever lack self-control. 

“Sure.” Hank massaged a knot out of the nape of Dylan’s neck. “All the great ones are throwers, not kickers.” 

“Should I take that as a confession you’re a thrower when you’re angry?” asked Dylan, relaxed enough to be sassy. 

“I’m not telling, so don’t try to nose that secret out of me, Dylan.” Hank tapped the bridge of Dylan’s nose with his finger. “If you learn the answer to that question, you won’t be happy, I promise you that.” 

“Don’t go all ominous and mysterious on me, Z.” Dylan wrinkled his nose. “I already know that when you’re livid, you make a bear with a raging hangover seem like a pleasant and unthreatening creature.” 

“A bear with a raging hangover,” repeated Hank, shaking his head at the crazy comparisons Dylan concocted. “How the hell do you come up with things like that?” 

“I pull them out of my ass.” Dylan stuck out his tongue. “Like most people.”


End file.
